


Stiles and the Silent Forest

by sunryder



Series: Cardcaptor Stiles [2]
Category: Cardcaptor Sakura, Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Alive Hale Family, Alternate Universe - Fusion, Alternate Universe - Magic, BAMF Stiles, Cardcaptor Stiles, F/M, M/M, Magical Stiles Stilinski
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-08
Updated: 2015-12-27
Packaged: 2018-05-05 14:48:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 9,936
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5379086
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sunryder/pseuds/sunryder
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The silence was closing in on him. Some part of Stiles knew that the shadows shouldn’t have been creeping out from behind the trees, stretching long fingers towards his feet and reaching up between the leaves to blot out the sun.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> So, I've spent the last few months stopping myself from writing fanfic so I can focus on my dissertation. Today I got into a kerfuffle with my dissertation supervisor and realized that I've been pouring all my energy into a project that isn't giving me a return on the joy.
> 
> So in an effort to track down a little bit of that joy I started writing again. Writing things that actually make me happy. So thank you for your patience, and I hope you get the same amount of joy from the next episode of Cardcaptor Stiles as it gave me to write it.

Important Fact About Stiles #1:

 

Stiles hates mornings

 

Truly and honestly hates them.

 

Stiles was actually tempted to believe in a devil just so he could attribute the evil that is mornings to him. (Though, after the magic and Werewolves of the last 48 hours Stiles was willing to acknowledge that there were more things than he knew about in his previous life philosophy.) Stiles didn’t actually know if he was a ‘night person’, or if a lifetime of waiting up for his father to come home from the late shift had conditioned him into one. But either way, mornings – especially mornings before coffee – were the worst.

 

Which is why when Scott burst back into Stiles’s room at the disgustingly early hour of 8:03, Stiles seriously contemplated throwing something at him. Luckily for Scott, Stiles’s aim was shit at the best of times, so Scott survived long enough for some of his words to actually sink in through Stiles’s pre-coffee haze. “She’s going to kill me!”

 

“Whazzat?” Stiles managed to slur out. “Is there someone in my kitchen?” Because Stiles was pretty sure that he remembered Scott falling asleep in his room last night, and it was way too early for him to have gone anyplace that wasn’t downstairs to make Stiles coffee.

 

“My Mom is going to kill me! She’s got a double shift today so I went home to have an early breakfast with her before she left, and I can’t find my inhaler!”

 

“Wait, what?” Stiles lurched out of the mountain of covers that was supposed to be protecting him from magic for the rest of the weekend.

 

“It must’ve fallen out of my pocket in the woods last night! And if I have to tell my mom that I lost _another_ inhaler—” It would be another ‘No Stiles!’ week. And Scott, for all Stiles loved him, wasn’t the world’s most effective liar. Melissa would ask where he’d been that he couldn’t track down the inhaler, and eventually Scott would stumble out something vague about woods, and Stiles, and “We were just trying to help.” Melissa would call the Sheriff, and rather than avoiding his father and solving his card problem, Stiles would spend his Scott-free week filing the boring paperwork and watching his dad eat curly fries while Deaton tracked down the book Stiles had technically stolen.

 

Stiles scooped up Phil – who gave a petulant little “meow” at the treatment that wasn’t at all adorable – and the three of them stumbled out to the jeep. By the time they made it to the preserve Scott had explained to Phil in full sentences both the problem and its inevitable fallout if they got caught so he could figure out why the boys were both running around still in their pajama bottoms.

 

Apparently the concept of getting grounded from a person was a little foreign to the cat, but when he figured it out he asked, “You do know that I’m gifted to hunt the cards and not inhalers, don’t you?”

 

“We wouldn’t have been in the woods last night if it wasn’t for you, so you’re coming, and you’re putting that little kitty nose to good use.” Stiles snapped.

 

He didn’t want to get Scott in trouble, but he was not in the mood for this shit. Going back into the woods after last night seemed like the worst idea ever. Even worse than actually going into the woods to track down the Hunt in the first place. He felt like fate might excuse them for their stupidity the first time because they didn’t know any better, but heading back into the forest when they knew what was running around in there seemed like just _asking_ the cards to turn up and screw with them. Which was not going to help Stiles’s efforts to get rid of the cards rather than get more involved with them.

 

To be honest, Stiles had kind of been hoping that he would wake up to the sound of Deaton pounding at his door. Then the vet would fix him with that disapproving glower that was his default expression when dealing with Stiles and take the Codex and two cards off his hands to turn them over to someone who actually wanted to be actively involved in magic. (Which, hopefully, would be someone that Phil felt alright with, but that really wasn’t Stiles’s problem.)

 

Phil cocked his furry little head at Stiles like he could see that irritation twisting out underneath his skin. “And if I refuse?”

 

“Then maybe the Hunt will be good at tracking it down.”

 

“You want to use an Argent Card to find your friend’s inhaler?” Phil stumbled out the words like he couldn’t believe he was actually articulating them.

 

“Why not? It has to be better than spending all it’s time trapped in paper.” Stiles slammed the jeep to a stop in one of the hidden, off-road nooks the deputies always forgot to check.

 

Phil stayed resolutely in the shotgun seat, but twisted around to Scott in the back, like ever in a million years Scott would side with someone else over Stiles. “Please tell me this is a particularly poor example of Stiles’s wit.”

 

“Dude, we never joke when it comes to my inhaler.”

 

This whole morning leads us to Important Fact About Stiles #2:

 

Stiles doesn’t actually like the woods.

 

(He felt like he was betraying all the teenagers who have ever dwelt or ever will dwell in Beacon Hills by even thinking it. But it’s true.)

 

Stiles liked places with coffee, and research libraries, and good wi-fi: none of which exist in the woods. Quiet had never been Stiles’s friend unless he had something to sink his mental teeth into. Even then, the quiet only rarely facilitated thinking. Most of the time he put on one of his dozens of playlists to get him through the quiet, each playlist designed to keep his brain on track through a certain mood, noise level, Adderall dosage, and degree of twitchiness.

 

Without distractions the quiet seemed to settle over Stiles like ash, muffling every sound he tried to make to cut through it. He could smack open palms to the desk, turn up his music, put on his best headphones, and still the silence would slither around him like it wanted to steal the very breath from his lungs and keep Stiles from ever speaking again. To Stiles, the woods were nothing but silence. Miles and miles of silence and no way to break through. All you could do was climb into the jeep and gun it back to town, back to civilization, and people, and enough life that not even the silence could strangle you.

 

See, at that moment Stiles was particularly concerned about the silence because that was all there was.

 

He’d climbed out of the jeep with a slam of the door and headed towards the woods, halfway to pulling the Hunt card out of his pocket and asking the horn to toot him in the direction of Scott’s inhaler. Phil’s disapproval was a physical thing behind him, the petulant kitten still sitting in the front seat of the car while Scott tried to cajole him out, but that wasn’t what stopped Stiles.

 

Stiles didn’t use the card because he could feel the throb of the Hunt in his pocket, like it was anxious to get out of the paper and do whatever Stiles asked, no matter how non-lethal that request might be. And that feeling, it terrified him.

 

Under other circumstances Stiles would be embarrassed about how long it took him to realize that Scott and Phil weren’t following, but he was a little caught up in trying to shove his guilt back into the little box where it usually lived. The Hunt seemed thrilled to be in Stiles’s care, and all Stiles wanted was to hand it back over to Deaton and pretend like the last day had never happened. He muttered under his breath that it was a freaking piece of paper that Stiles didn’t have to worry about hurting it, but no matter what Phil said on the subject it was hard to make that argument when Stiles could feel the want humming in his pocket.

 

This overthinking things and not getting his brain to shut up was the problem with the forest. It was the problem with all the stupid, half-decomposed leaves still covering the ground from last fall like a blanket that swallowed up his footsteps. At least in fall he could’ve crunched through them, long kicking strides designed to toss the crackling leaves around as much as possible. But no, stupid early spring meant stupid dead leaves, and stupid green buds on trees keeping them from clattering together like this was a horror movie. Because this so totally was a horror movie, and stupid spring wasn’t going to change that.

 

That was the moment Stiles paused. Because right about there Scott was supposed to turn his sad puppy eyes on Stiles and say, “Stupid spring? Really Stiles?” and with his relentless optimism try and convince him about all the wonders of spring. (Because spring meant summer, and summer meant no school.)

 

But Scott didn’t interrupt him. Stiles couldn’t even hear Phil’s scathing commentary and Scott’s sweet prodding anymore. He twisted around, expecting to see cat and boy staring at one another in a silent standoff, but the jeep wasn’t there.

 

And neither was the road.

 

Or honestly, anything Stiles actually recognized.

 

Stiles wasn’t great with finding his way through the woods, but he was the Sheriff’s kid and a lifetime of lectures had taught Stiles to pay attention to his surroundings. Yeah, if questioned he probably wouldn’t be able to tell his dad much more than, “Uh, trees?” But he remembered what the area looked like, and this was not where Stiles had been before.

 

Stiles was pretty sure that if Phil was here he would’ve lectured Stiles about respecting ancient traditions and how the cardcaptor had to be ‘one with the cards and feel them through the ether so they could guide him back home.’ But Phil wasn’t here, so Stiles pulled out his phone.

 

Or, he would’ve, but there was no phone in his pocket. And no car keys. And no Adderall bottle. All of which were things that Stiles developed a psychosomatic twitch if he was ever without.

 

So… magic.

 

Stiles had been too angry to subject the Codex to a thorough, page by page, Google translate last night, which was really coming back to bite him in the ass right now. Fantasy literature gave him a few guesses about what had pulled him away from the others (teleportation being the highest on the list), but that wasn’t going to do him any good while he was stuck out here in the middle of nowhere.

 

Stiles tucked his hand inside his flannel overshirt, like he had a breast pocket hiding in there. Once again, Stiles didn’t really know where it came from – and he doubted the Codex would really delve into the physics – but the card he was looking for came to his fingers. Stiles sucked in a slow breath and focused on how cool that was, not on how his measured breathing was the only sound in the world.

 

Based on what Stiles had been willing to listen to Phil say last night, the Hunt was supposed to listen to him now. This wasn’t one of those ‘you don’t have enough badges to control your high-level pokemon’ situations. Once the card was yours, it was yours. (Unless, of course, you tried to burn people in their beds. But Stiles could totally get behind that restriction.) Using the Hunt to find his home was the same thing as hunting Werewolves, right?

 

Stiles extended his arms full out, with the Hunt clenched so tightly between his fingertips that if it wasn’t magical it would’ve crumpled in his hand. “So, um,” Stiles began, then stopped himself. He may have summoned the Wind with sarcasm and a total lack of belief, but he’d done it with confidence. (He was also not thinking that he’d done it with Phil at his side telling him to, and what a pivotal difference that presence might make to a card.)

 

With a steady voice and all the certainty of having pulled this off before – despite not knowing how he did it – Stiles called out, “Hunt, I need you!”

 

But the card didn’t come.

 

The fucking card that Stiles had captured didn’t come! He was alone in the woods and the card just left him alone. It was the Hunt. Wasn’t the Hunt supposed to be able to hunt Stiles down wherever he was, including the middle of the woods?

 

The panic attack was on Stiles before he could stop it. It was like the silence knew he was alone and vulnerable, and started to press down on him, closing off his ears and squeezing his lungs. He couldn’t scream. He couldn’t make the sound come, and whatever air he had he needed to breathe.

 

So that’s what he did. Deep breaths. Loud breaths. Heaving breaths that made all the noise he could without wasting his precious air.

 

But then the air stopped coming.

 

And Stiles, he may have started freaking out a little bit.

 

The silence was closing in on him. Some part of Stiles knew that the shadows shouldn’t have been creeping out from behind the trees, stretching long fingers towards his feet and reaching up between the leaves to blot out the sun. But that practical part of him got smothered under the pressure around his throat.

 

Stiles clawed at his own ribs, trying to rip away the vice clamping down on him, but he started to choke on the silence. His quaking knees gave out, dropping him down to the dirt. Which was stupid of him, because the darkness started to creep over his shoes and up his legs, midnight chill leeching the warmth out of his skin.

 

Stiles curled into a ball, pressing his shaking palms to his thundering chest to guard the little pocket of warmth inside his heart. Focus on that little ball of love is what his dad would always say. Focus on that and know it’s steady, know it’s stable, and let that steadiness spread out to his lungs. Breathe in and let them fill with the warmth, then breathe out and let the warmth spread to the rest of him. He was supposed to fill up his lungs again and again, all the warmth from that little ball pushing back the cold that was trying to claim him.

 

Stiles kept his eyes closed and let the calm spread through his panic. The situation was still tenuous, but he could fix it. Please, he was Stiles Stilinski. Give him another ten minutes and he’d have a controlled burn going through the forest so his dad would know right where to look. (Stiles wouldn’t be able to explain how he’d gotten all the way out here, but he could worry about that when he was found.)

 

Stiles nodded to himself and opened his eyes, half a plan to climb a tree try to nail down his location before he started lighting things on fire already formed. Only, he wasn’t alone anymore.

 

(For relative definitions of alone.)

 

It turned out the shadows weren’t so much a figment of Stiles’s panic attack as they were legitimate shadows skulking like naughty children just out of Stiles’s range. Or rather, out of the range of the little orb of glowing light floating right before Stiles’s eyes.

 

The orb was a softer version of that blue-green that the Pacific got at midday, but just hovering there, like a ball of smoldering smoke. Stiles reached out to poke at it, because, come on, why wouldn’t he? And the orb darted just out of reach.

 

“Hey,” Stiles objected, still a little out of breath. He stumbled to his feet and reached for it again, because chasing the random glowing light mean he was still safe from the darkness that actually throbbed like it was getting a little bit irritated about the interference.

 

Stiles lunged for the light, and this time his fingers went straight through it and the light vanished in a whiff of smoke.

 

Stiles had a split second of swelling darkness to think, “Oh shit,” before the little orb appeared ten feet in front of him. At least eight feet further away than Stiles needed it to be to actually provide him any safety from the shadows writhing around his feet like they were about to swallow him whole.

 

Stiles ran. And he was not ashamed about that at all.


	2. Chapter 2

Stiles sprinted towards the light, and half a step before he hit the little orb it vanished in another wisp only materialize again the same distance in front of him. Stiles got the point and broke into a sprint, following the steadily appearing lights deeper in the woods and through the darkness snapping at his heels. 

The orbs seemed to figure out his pace and modified their behavior accordingly. Several lights started popping up in a row so Stiles could anticipate where he was going next rather than just running headlong into the darkness and hoping he didn’t wrench something on a tree root when he had to change directions to meet up with the next light. 

And, strangely enough, those lights lead him crashing through the woods to Important Fact About Stiles #3:

Stiles is bisexual.

... he thinks.

At this point all his knowledge and suppositions about his own sexuality are purely theoretical, but theoretically speaking, he derived the same kind of pleasure from watching Danny strip off his t-shirt before practice as he did tracing the curve of Lydia’s throat as she cocked her head before verbally eviscerating someone.

Both of these were done in an entirely non-creepy and non-stalkery way, lets be clear about that. 

Stiles was pretty sure that his preferences had never been so much about gender as they had been about a quick mind, an iron will, and the ability to call Stiles on his bullshit while actually winning the argument.

But personality preference aside, Stiles—like most people—was still a sucker for an aesthetically pleasing figure. (Unless you were Jackson. No amount of pretty could make up for that assholery.) Which was why, when the glowing orbs had Stiles burst into a clearing and almost plow into the handsomest man he’d ever seen in his life, Stiles may have stumbled a little bit.

Alright, that stumble may have been tripping over his own two feet because his body just stopped functioning at the sight of the guy and crash landing straight into the guy’s chest. 

Which was magnificent, by the way. 

If Stiles could just have a moment to point out that running into the guy was like running into a brick wall, but the most well-defined brick wall Stiles had ever seen out of movies and also a wall that he really, truly, and profoundly wanted to fondle. Like, a lot. Seriously, he just wanted to just bury his face between the guy’s pecs and lick up the warm, earthy, scent built up there. 

The guy’s clothes were rucked up like he’d been in a sprint of his own, and it spoke to just how horrible a person Stiles was that he was grateful that it seemed like he wasn’t the only person getting chased through the forest by the shadows. Although, Stiles couldn’t really figure out why the guy had been in the clearing braced on all fours. But the ground wasn’t overturned like he’d been hiding a body, so Stiles decided he didn’t really care. Especially since Handsome Dude caught Stiles from his stumble and let his hands rest against those gorgeous muscles.

Of course, the shadows that he’d been trying—and failing—to run from, chose that moment to arc up like a silent wave and crash over Stiles and Handsome Dude. The guy grabbed Stiles by the scruff of his neck and yanked Stiles tight against his perfect chest to protect him from the darkness. Stiles had a split second to think, “Well this is awesome,” before he caught a flash of what he thought was blue from the guy’s eyes and was forcibly curled up into a ball and shoved down to the dirt. 

Handsome Dude snarled, though Stiles couldn’t figure out what made him think growling was going to do any good. 

Though, he couldn’t scoff too hard since it was a bit more than the cowering that Stiles was doing without the Cards to help him. There wasn’t much he could do, even if Wind and Hunt decided to stop being weasels and turn up when he actually called them. Hunt couldn’t really drive away the darkness with his horn, and darkness wasn’t exactly corporeal enough to be blown away. Despite that, common sense told Stiles that the glowing orbs that had led him away from the darkness might have it in them to get Stiles out of this mess. Though in the miniscule amount of information that Stiles had actually let Phil get out last night, he hadn’t really covered how to make use of a card that wasn’t in card form. Really, Stiles hadn’t let him say anything about using cards that were actually cards either. Stiles shoved back the impulse to feel bad about that, both because it meant he was stuck with no way to defend himself, and maybe because the cards knew damn well that he didn’t want them, so they had no reason to come. 

Stiles wriggled a little in Handsome Dude’s grip and managed to peer out at the gathering night. He could see the vague outline of trees as the only thing interrupting the growing darkness, but as every second passed, the trees and their shadowy background got closer and closer to the same pitch black. 

This was getting untenable. They couldn’t just sit there and let the darkness keep growing without trying to stop it. Handsome Dude kept his chest pressed against Stiles’s back, keeping him safely tucked away on the dirt while he lashed out like the darkness was actually something you could hit. Stiles figured it was a good thing this guy was pretty because he probably didn’t have much going on for him upstairs. 

Handsome Dude took the sloppiest right hook Stiles had ever seen at one of the encroaching tendrils of darkness. (His hand wasn’t even in a proper fist. He had his palm out like he was trying to rake his fingers through the darkness, or maybe even bitch slap it.) On the opposite side of Handsome Dude’s stupid swings the little blue orb still hovered, but now it was vibrating a little like the darkness was even making it nervous. 

Stiles tried to come up with something he could shove into the little orb to make it brighter. It wasn’t flame, so wood wouldn’t do any good, and it wasn’t like Stiles had anything in his pocket to refract the light so it could hit more of the darkness. 

Oh. Oh. He didn’t have anything he could use to refract the light, but… oh! 

Stiles grabbed Handsome Dude’s arm and used it like a handhold to haul himself out from underneath the guy’s bulk and snatch the little orb out of the air. The light immediately winked out the moment Stiles touched it, and Handsome Dude yanked him back to safety. Stiles managed to get his clenched fists underneath him before the Dude tucked around him like Stiles’s dad used to do when there was an earthquake. There was really no objecting when Stiles had a face full of dirt, and he was super duper not thinking about how Handsome Dude had started to snarl at the darkness. 

Some part of Stiles couldn’t help but point out that the guy currently on top of him could easily be mistaken for a Hale, what with the cheekbones, and the eyes, and the general prettiness, and the snarling. But Stiles was super not in the mood to contemplate the ramifications of that. Not because it was a particularly troubling set of circumstances—Stiles’s inherent morality had never been anything but dubious—but because he was pretty sure that the darkness was actually trying to haul Handsome Dude off of him. Claws dug into the dirt beside his shoulders, and Stiles could see just the faintest twilight outline of clenching muscles trying to keep him pressed against Stiles’s back. But he could feel hips lifting away from his, and legs kicking against the midnight fingers pulling his protector up and away. Stiles couldn’t tell if the darkness was trying to get to him or to Handsome Dude, but either way, it was winning.

Stiles crushed the light between his hands and then crunched his hands to his chest, like rolling up in a ball around his fists would exert just the right amount of pressure to make his plan work. 

Finally, he could hear—not see, because the darkness had gotten so thick that there wasn’t even a point in trying anymore—Handsome Dude’s fingers ripping out of the dirt where he’d tried to claw himself down. In a last ditch effort, Handsome Dude shoved Stiles down and away like that would do any good. 

Of course, Stiles being Stiles, he went face first into the dirt with enough pressure that his fists crumpled beneath him like eggs dropped on the kitchen floor. There was a split second where nothing happened, and Stiles had that awful sinking in his gut that came with any of his plans not working the way they were supposed to. But then, Stiles wasn’t so much concerned about the plan not working since he went flying back, straight into Handsome Dude who it seemed the darkness hadn’t dragged all that far away. Flying through the air took precedence over hair-brained schemes any day of the week. 

Stiles smashed his back into Handsome Dude’s perfect chest hard enough to send them both sprawling to the ground. Stiles flopped himself around like a dying fish trying to get off the guy. Not because he was likely to crush him and his sheer bulk or anything, but because Stiles was a teenager, and lurking darkness trying to eat them was not enough to kill his libido. 

Thick arms wrapped around Stiles, and he immediately stilled at the heat of hands seeping through his flannel. “Look,” Handsome Dude grunted—partly because monosyllabic words looked like they totally suited him, and partly because Stiles had elbowed him in the ribs before the guy managed to stop him. 

The dude gave Stiles a little shake and repeated himself.

Stiles snapped, “What are you—” before he managed to notice that he could actually see the whorls of color in Handsome Dude’s eyes. “Oh.”

Handsome Dude gave a breathy, “Yeah,” that perfectly reflected how blown away Stiles was at the beauty before him. But Handsome Dude wasn’t looking back at Stiles. He was looking up at the orbs floating above them like their own constellation of stars. 

The darkness was still there, a barrier between them and the sunshine Stiles knew had to be out there, but now it was just a pretty backdrop to the glowing lights. There was a haphazard net of them pushing up against the darkness and holding it at bay, but the space between was filled with roaming lights that circled each according to it’s own orbit. Some of the little lights left trails through the darkness, like comets streaking across the sky, while others seemed uncertain about the whole, ‘tangible object thing’ and were slowly drifting apart like cosmic dust. 

While he had been able to actually talk to Wind, Stiles was starting to think that maybe communication with non-personified cards needed something a little different. Stiles had caught the one little light thinking that while he couldn’t actually tell it what he wanted it do with words, he might he able to tell it with his hands. He had compressed the orb like he was trying to create a diamond between his palms. He’d been hoping that maybe the orb would take on a non-spherical shape and maybe start projecting the light in something other than a soft glow, but shattering into a hundred tiny orbs totally worked for him too. 

Handsome Dude reached up for one of the orbs with hesitant fingers, then stopped himself before he could connect. Stiles wasn’t having that. He reached out and grabbed the orb, and this time it didn’t vanish in a puff of smoke. There was something at the orb’s center, some core that was roughly akin to holding a pillow. That core was well hidden by the light and the—for lack of a better term—thick crust of smoke. (At the present moment Stiles actually didn’t know much about the construction of stars, but when he’d done some research he’d come up with a better word for it. Right now he was sticking with planetary geology as his best reference.)

Stiles went to hand Handsome Dude the orb, and found he had the guy’s full attention on him. Stiles didn’t think it was possible, but he was actually even more handsome in the light of day than he’d been in the half-light of the encroaching shadows. The Sheriff part of Stiles recognized that for Stiles to actually know that about Handsome Dude, the orbs had to have split the shadows down the middle like they were being unzipped and let in the bright light of the morning, dissipating the rest of the shadows with the indominable light of the sun. But Stiles wasn’t so much paying attention to that as he was to how Handsome Dude was actually staring back. 

Stiles just thrust out his hand into the scant space between them, silently saying, “Look, I got it for you.” 

Handsome Dude trailed his fingertips through the smoke, which shivered under his touch like Stiles would totally like the opportunity to do at some future point. But the guy flinched back like the shivering was something worse. 

Stiles actually felt a little defensive of the last remaining glowing ball, it had saved their lives after all and it did not deserve to get flinched away from, even by a guy as hot as this. Stiles huffed, “It’s not going to hurt you, you know,” and tried to get up.

Then, he tried to get up again. Only, it seemed Handsome Dude had decided not to let him up, and judging by how all those warm, pliant muscles now felt like they’d been carved out of granite, it wasn’t because all of Stiles’s fondest fantasies had come true.


	3. Chapter 3

Handsome Dude just stayed there, and the arm wrapped around Stiles’s chest started to feel less like a comfort and more like an iron band keeping him from escaping. Not that Stiles thought he’d need to be escaping, but he’d really like the option to stand up. The lying down in the dirt was starting to get a little old, especially since he could definitely say that Handsome Dude’s arm hadn’t been comfortable in the first place, and now that it was tensed up with whatever about the glowing orb had set him off, it was worse. It was not unlike lying on a rock. Stiles tried to sit up again, and the arm didn’t move to let him. 

Stiles flopped back down to the dirt and looked over at Handsome Dude, who didn’t seem to realize that he was basically keeping Stiles pinned. Instead, was staring up at the bright blue sky like it had all the answers. Stiles reciprocated, looking up as well since apparently eye contact was to be avoided. But he couldn’t help himself, and he peeked at Handsome Dude out of the corner of his eye while he asked, “Uh… so, what’s up?”

“You’re the boy Cora was talking about yesterday. The one who turned up at school reeking of magic.”

“Yes.” Stiles stopped trying to pretend like they were being cool about this. He twisted around in Handsome Dude’s arms and half-propped himself up on his chest. “And seriously, I don’t know who in your organization is in charge of teaching Cora and her friends to blend in, but they need a refresher course.”

“Pack.” 

“What?”

“We belong to a pack, not an organization.” He finally turned to look at Stiles when he gave his answer, and Stiles may or may not have rambled a little bit when he got caught up in staring at Handsome Dude’s eyes.

“I guess that makes sense with the whole werewolf thing. But my point still stands. She needs remedial training in not tipping people off to what you guys are. Because I’m not kidding, she dragged me into the janitor’s closet and sniffed me.” Handsome Dude pressed his face into the juncture of Stiles’s throat and took a long sniff of his own. “Yes! Exactly like that. Only, less gentle and more terrifying because: Cora.” 

Handsome Dude traced down the line of Stiles’s throat with the tip of his nose, then went back up again, and really, nothing about this situation was helpful to Stiles and his attempt to not seem like the kind of ghoulish teenager who got off on stressful situations. Ghouls were not at all attractive, they were creepy.

Then Handsome Dude pressed his nose so hard against the juncture of Stiles’s head and neck that it forced his head up and back, like the guy was trying to check on Stiles’s lymph nodes with his nose. Then Stiles’s head snapped back down, along with the rest of his body, both smashing straight into the dirt because the guy was halfway across the clearing, braced in a three point stance with claws out and blue eyes like the electric version of the orbs. 

Stiles tried to scramble up to his feet because, A) facedown in the dirt was not at all sexy, and B) something must be attacking them for Handsome Dude to run off like that.

Stiles made it up to all fours in time for Handsome Dude to snarl, “You’re a hunter!” through his pointed teeth.

It was sad how much Stiles’s life had changed in the last 24 hours. Because yesterday at this time he would be able to honestly say both “no,” and “what in the hell would make you think that? Why would anyone trust me with a gun? If I ever even thought about it my dad would have a heart attack, and do you know the kind of food I subject us both to to keep that from happening?” 

But today, he knew exactly what Handsome Dude was talking about. 

Stiles rocked back on his heels and grabbed his shirt collar to haul it up and sniff at it. “You’ve got to be kidding me! I’ve had the fucking cards for like twelve hours and I’m already starting to smell like those psychos? Fuck, I don’t suppose you and your nose could like, point me back in the direction of my jeep? I have to get these things back to Deaton before I get myself into any more trouble.”

Handsome Dude skittered away when Stiles got to his feet, and Stiles couldn’t help but roll his eyes. Seriously, this guy was like three times his size. Not to mention the still-extended claws. “Dude, I’m gonna need you to calm down.”

“What are you talking about?

“I’m talking about the you looking like you’re either about to run off into the woods with your tail between your legs or rip me open with those claws of yours.” 

“Not that! What were you saying about the cards?”

Stiles took a moment to negotiate the fine line between telling the truth and the likelihood of being gutted by the skittish werewolf standing in front of him. He went with short, but still honest. “I’m not a hunter, or an Argent. I accidentally grabbed the book when I was at Deaton’s clinic.”

“Accidentally grabbing a book doesn’t do that!” Dude gestured at the ball of light still hovering over Stiles’s shoulder. 

Alright, so he’d gone with short and mostly honest. Which apparently was not the way the way to go because it seemed like Handsome Dude not only knew what the cards were, but he knew one of the cards on sight. One of the cards that hadn’t been used to try and kill his family. 

“I’ll tell you what happened if you tell me how you know what this is.” Stiles ran soft fingers along the edge of the orb.

“It’s an Argent card! Any Werewolf with sense has know what they are to keep themselves alive!”

“But how would you know it’s a card when it’s not the one that they used to try and kill your family?”

Dude was across the clearing in an instant, slamming Stiles up against a tree. This was not at all a good way to begin the relationship that Stiles had been hoping for. “How do you know about that?”

“Phil told me.” It may not be the position Stiles had been hoping for, but the claws had been put away so he wasn’t all that nervous.

“Phil?”

“The Codex’s Guardian. He’s a cat. I touched the book when I was at Deaton’s and the cards scattered. Apparently they’re still pissed at whoever the last Cardcarrier was for the whole trying to burn your family alive in their beds thing.”

“A cat?”

“Really? That’s what you’re focusing on? Yes, a cat.”

“Like, a lion?”

“Nope. Housecat. Kitten, really.” Handsome Dude had let Stiles down, giving him enough space to sketch out Phil’s loaf of bread size, but still kept his hands on the tree to keep Stiles in place. 

“You’re telling me that you scattered the Argent Cards?” 

“I suppose it depends on your definition of scattered.”

“Kid!”

“Stiles.” He grinned, sticking out his hand to shake. “My name is Stiles Stilinski.”

Handsome Dude just stared at Stiles’s hand like this was a brand new social nicety that he’d never before encountered. Which might be a possibility what with the wolf thing. Eventually he slipped his hand into Stiles’s and… wow. Stiles had laughed at the old movies they had to watch for English class—had to might have been a bit strong, but really, what was the point of reading if you weren’t going to find out what they did with all of the different movie adaptations as well?—but now he felt the need to write them all letters and apologize. Because having Handsome Dude’s hand in his sent a shiver down his spine. He kind of wanted to drag the guy forward by his hand and never let him go.

“Derek Hale.” 

“Pleasure to meet you, Derek Hale.” 

“I would say it’s a pleasure to meet you, but you’re trying to avoid telling me why in the hell the Argent Cards are running wild in my family’s forest.” 

“It was an accident.”

“Stiles!” Derek’s eyes flashed at that one, so Stiles laid his metaphorical cards on the table. 

“I took the book off the shelf, and it flew out of my hands, and the cards erupted into the air because they don’t want to work for the Argents anymore, and now at least three have them have been in the forest, but I don’t know where the rest of them are, but I imagine they’re not going to go far because Phil is here, so even if they do go far he’ll still be able to track them down.” 

The whole thing came out in a rush, but it seemed Derek got to go on the short list with Scott and Stiles’s dad as people who were able to understand him when he went on a ramble. “Do the Argents know that the Cards have gone missing?”

“I’m like 98% positive that Deaton knows, so yeah, I’d guess that they know too.”

“But you’re still using the Cards.”

“Using is probably a strong word for it. It’s really more like I’m hanging out with the Cards until I can get them back to their proper owners. Like a lost puppy.”

“But that doesn’t make sense! Sparks don’t use cards!” 

“Oh, Sparks? Is that what this guy is called? The Spark?” Stiles poked at the little orb, which danced away from his fingers in a way that totally made Stiles feel like he was being laughed at. 

“No, I mean… never mind. It doesn’t matter. And I shouldn’t be talking to you about this anyway.” Derek turned on his heel and stormed back the direction he’d come. 

Stiles took a moment to watch him walk away—really, that ass was spectacular—before he followed, waiving away the little orb so it didn’t feel the need to follow. “Why not?”

“You’ve got a Card listening to you, and the Codex’s Guardian telling you what’s going on. You’re on the Cards’s side.”

“First off, no I’m not. I’m trying to get the Cards back to Deaton so they can be someone else’s problem to gather. And second, the Cards have turned against the Argents. Even if I was on their side it would necessarily mean that I wasn’t on the Argent’s side, and it seems like that’s really your problem.” 

Derek kept walking so Stiles darted around in front of him to force him to stop. “Do I smell like an Argent, or do I smell like the magic in the cards?”

Derek quirked an eyebrow, and wow, that was a surprisingly expressive muscle group for such an angry guy. Stiles just rocked back and forth on his heels, keeping his mouth firmly shut and his grin in place. Soon enough Derek edged forwards, keeping the bulk of his body as far away from Stiles as he could while he poked his nose forward. “You know that you could probably bench press me, right?”

“No, I know I could. But physical strength means nothing when there’s wolfsbane involved.”

“Wolfsbane? That’s not a legend, then? What does it do?” 

“It hurts.” Derek huffed. “You don’t smell like it, though. And you don’t smell like the Argent’s breed of magic.”

“But I do smell like the Cards?”

“Lightly. And not enough that anyone who hadn’t been exposed to them like I have would notice.”

“How have you been exposed? And wait, what on earth did Cora smell in school yesterday if the Cards are only kind of on me? Because it took you a while to figure it out and you didn’t even have the smell of teenagers to make it more difficult.”

For a whole three seconds Stiles thought that Derek might actually answer him. So of course, the moment Stiles got his hopes up was the one that Derek’s face shut down. “Didn’t you say you needed to get back to your car?” 

“Well yeah, but—”

“Then lets go.” Derek took off towards the left, striding off at a pace that Stiles absolutely could not match. It wasn’t that Stiles’s legs weren’t long enough, but that when he tried to lengthen his stride he managed to trip over his feet. “You know, Phil is dodging questions about the Cards”—which was a complete and total lie—“so maybe you could tell me what you know about them? Maybe over a cup of coffee?”

Stiles wasn’t thrilled that Derek’s response was to trip, but it made him slow down enough that Stiles could actually catch up. Derek twisted around to stare at him, like he couldn’t imagine a world in which Stiles would kind of, sort of, ask him out. Though it wasn’t disbelief in the mean way that Lydia usually employed. Like he couldn’t believe Stiles was asking him out, it was disbelief that Stiles was asking him out. 

Derek traced his eyes up and down the length of Stiles, and that was the most arousing thing that had ever happened in the whole course of his short life. “How old are you?”

“What does that matter?”

“Stiles.” Derek sighed and headed back towards the woods. 

“I’m seventeen.” Stiles burst out, darting after Derek. 

“So you’re the jailbait son of the Sheriff.”

“I’m not jailbait!” 

“You’re carrying the Argent Cards, you smell like magic, and you’re under the age of consent.” 

“That’s not a no.” 

“That is, in fact, three different no’s with very explicit reasons for why I’m saying no.”

“Are you sure? Because coffee would totally be in a public space where no one could accuse you of anything, and where I couldn’t do anything supernatural to you in case you’re worried about me suddenly developing an affinity for the Argent Cards and using them to do my evil bidding.”

“Try again when you’re fully grown.”

“I’m not gonna get any taller, dude.”

“How about this: ask when you’re old enough that ‘dude’ is no longer a part of your vocabulary.”

Stiles kept pestering Derek about the date along the way, trying to cajole Derek into maybe meeting his friends, or turning up to help him study the Cards—Phil would be there to supervise and he would scratch out their eyes if they tried anything—or maybe just offer up his number so Stiles could text him. Derek gave snarky replies each and every time. Stiles knew he was pushing things, but he couldn’t quite make himself stop. His brain was running on a constant loop of, “That wasn’t a no! That was a, maybe later!” He knew Derek wasn’t going to suddenly cave and say yes, but this was the furthest Stiles had ever gotten and he didn’t really know how to go forward. It was kind of like his brain had gotten caught in the snow and was spinning its wheels. 

Sooner than Stiles had expected given how far away he’d felt in the woods, Derek came to a stop. At the edge of his hearing Stiles could make out Scott calling for him. “I’m assuming that’s your car, because I don’t think there are that many Stileses out here.” 

“You sure you don’t want to come with me so I can give you a late breakfast as a thank you for the life saving?” 

“You saved yourself, Stiles. I just bought you time.”

“Hey, that time buying was what saved us both from getting eaten by the darkness, so you should let me pay you back with you getting to eat something.”

Stiles flushed about 14 different shades of red when he realized just how that sounded. Derek, like the gentleman he secretly was, ignored the prime opening for mocking. “It’s still not cause for breakfast.” Derek headed back into the forest, leaving Stiles behind without a goodbye or his phone number. Stiles was going to totally shout about that, then Derek paused for half a beat, clenched his hands into fists, and came back. He pressing tight into Stiles’s space and rubbed his stubbled check brusquely across Stiles’s before he twisted around and sprinted into the woods. 

Stiles could hear Scott calling for him, his voice still faint, but clear. He could hear the pause in between shouts at what was undoubtedly Phil telling Scott that calling wouldn’t do him any good. Scott undoubtedly said something back, sharper than Phil had thought him capable, then started yelling again. This time Stiles thought the cracks in his voice weren’t due just to exhaustion, but to the encroaching sense of terror that there was nothing he could do to help his best friend. 

Stiles would shout back any moment now. Then he and Scott would both break into a run and leap into each other’s arms like the bros they were. But right now, Stiles pressed back against the tree and calmed himself down. If he went running to Scott like this he’d slam into him and stumble out everything about the silence, and the panic attack, and that whatever in the hell had made that darkness that hunted him through the woods was still out there. And Derek. He’d tell Scott everything about Derek, which would be stupid since at this moment he didn’t really know anything. 

He’d tell Scott eventually, he really would, but not when he could still feel the darkness nipping at his heels. Not when Derek had vanished back into the forest taking all the peace with him. Stiles would tell Scott when they were safely tucked away at home, behind locked doors and a security system, where the shadows had to go through his best friend and his father before they could get to him. The shadows were still too close to talk about now, like they were Beetlejuice and saying their name three times would make them appear. 

So instead Stiles leaned against his tree and tilted his head back to feel the warmth of the pale spring sun on his face. As the heat seeped into him Stiles slipped his hand under the edge of his flannel shirt, reaching into the invisible breast pocket that only seemed to appear when he was looking for a card.

In his hand wasn’t the Wind, or even the Hunt – and make no mistake, Stiles would definitely be asking what had happened out there to keep the Hunt from coming when he called. 

It was the Glow. 

The card was the same shape and size as the other two, but it showed an image scattered with a thousand fireflies. Stiles didn’t really get how the card had ended up in his pocket, but he had known the second the glow went from something wild, to something that belonged to him. 

As he held the card pinched between the fingers of his right hand, he turned his left up to the sunlight. Cradled in his palm was the faintest glimmer of blue light. 

With a flick of both his wrists the light vanished and so did the card, just in time for Stiles to shout back to Scott.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A thousand apologies that this took the whole of break to get to you. I was travelling last Monday, and I packed along the latest chapter on my jump drive to get it out to you when I landed. Unfortunately, I uploaded the wrong file, hence what has turned out to be a massive delay. I got home last night, and getting this out to you was my first project of the morning.

Truth #1: Erebus was old. 

Had he been Phaedrus, this would’ve been the moment he launched into a long, dramatic speech about how he was the space between the stars, that ever-present darkness no light could touch, no matter how hard it strived. He would explain that he had been born in the early days of the world and named after his father, the great primordial darkness that all humans were built to fear. But the gnawing terror of these tiny creatures was so great that Erebus the First had to split himself into a thousand smaller pieces to cover all the dark places and their inherent magic. 

But Erebus was not Phaedrus, and thousands of years of life had purged him of the urge for dramatics. So instead, Erebus contented himself with the memory that he was old. 

An age which he felt every inch of as he sat on young Derek’s windowsill and watched his little wolf sleep. The boy’s family had rattled off a thousand questions when he got home, younger cousins and siblings crawling all over him and demanding to know why he smelt like magic. Little wolf had taken it all with a patient smile and told his alpha an abbreviated, non-Stiles-centric version of the truth. It was enough to keep their family safe from Argents running around the woods, but kept Stiles safe as well. 

His alpha mother knew he was withholding information, because despite Erebus’ nearly constant presence in the back of his mind, Derek was still one of the worst liars he’d ever seen, perhaps only surpassed by Phaedrus. But despite her excessive application of red eyes and alpha voice, and his father’s own cajoling tone, Derek had held firm in his refusal to tell them everything. 

Truth #2: The Hales didn’t know quite what to do with Derek. He was no alpha wolf—of that they were certain—but he didn’t respond like a beta should. They thought the deception of Kate Argent had altered something fundamental about how Derek dealt with the world. Daniel Hale, Derek’s father, thought she had ruined Derek’s ability to trust, something that stretched from his potential lovers to his own pack. Uncle Peter thought Derek had simply learned the price of being weak and refused to find himself taken advantage of yet again. Those opinions always ended in an argument between the two men, Daniel declaring that following an alpha wasn’t weakness, and Peter snorting like it was the funniest thing he’d ever heard. 

However, none of them—family members, other packs, psychiatrists, or emissaries—ever guessed that Derek’s newfound immunity to his alpha’s personality was because Erebus refused to leave him vulnerable ever again. Erebus had done his duty, standing by through the emotional and physical manipulation to let Kate dig her own grave, and Erebus had never felt so much like a monster in all his days. 

According to Edmond Argent, Erebus was meant to dwell in the Codex with the rest of the cards, until a new Carrier was chosen. Then he was to slip from between the pages and find a host to piggyback on while he kept a watchful eye on the new Carrier. On the rare occasion that the Carrier was good, Erebus would simply stay there, a silent observer that the Carrier would never have to face and the host would never know. When things went wrong, Phaedrus would nudge the host into a prime position to witness it. On the rare occasion a host lacked the spine to explain exactly why the cards had returned to the Codex, Erebus’ last act would be to use the host’s voice and give the report that they ought to have. Then Erebus was to return to the Codex to lay in rest with his fellow Cards.

However, Erebus had never been one for the rules.

Oh, he’d spent Edmond’s lifetime in the Codex, and done the same for a few Carriers after that just to see what it was like. (After all, he couldn’t properly represent his Cards if he didn’t understand their situation.) But he’d soon gotten bored with the confines of the Codex, and near after that had gotten fed up with Edmond’s implied instructions that he ought to take the head of the Argent family as his host. Truthfully, the second time an Argent Head lied during their testimony about the behavior of a Carrier, Erebus had renounced the whole system. He would flit from host to host, studying the changing world around them and seeing what precisely the Argents were doing to those supernatural peoples they dared to call creatures. 

Erebus had been hopping around the Argent family in the months before Kate came of age. Not out of anything to do with her, but because he’d seen how Phaedrus flinched when young Gerard came near the Codex. Erebus had still gone about his own affairs, but he’d spent the decades of Gerard’s life more involved in the family’s business than he’d ever been before. 

Here was fundamental Truth #3: Edmond lacked the power to keep Erebus tied to anything, let alone his quest for vengeance. 

The other spirits the sorcerer tied into Cards were simple things, little more than an impulse of nature or magic that he gave physical form by naming them. Like everything else magic had an ebb and flow. If they’d been left to their own devices those same spirits would’ve dissipated or joined with some other force in the several hundred years since they’d been put into a Card. But when he trapped them, Edmond cut the spirits off from the natural order of things. He rendered them unable to flow to anyplace else, and as a result they had become stronger. They had come into themselves, and together they had decided they would take no more of their captivity. Really, if Edmond had spent a bit more time studying the theory of magic than using it for offense he would’ve been able to predict the situation they now found themselves in. 

But Erebus, he’d let Edmond summon him because he was curious about what this little human had planned, and he’d let himself be tied to a Card because by that point he’d met Phaedrus and was unwilling to leave him, no matter the terrible human company he kept. That didn’t mean he was as willing as his darling friend to sit silent on the presumption that Edmond was in the right. (Though he could extend Phaedrus some understanding since before Edmond summoned him Phaedrus had been an unnamed being of pure light, much like the other Cards.) In truth, the only reason he stayed year after year, Carrier after Carrier, was because it was only through staying that he would be able to protect Phaedrus when it all inevitably went sideways. 

Edmond had layered magic over Erebus’s card to compel him to find the person magic thought was best suited to keep him informed about the potential damage a Cardcarrier might do. It never quite entered Edmond’s perception of the world to think that maybe that person might be outside of the Argent bloodline, or even their species. So when Kate took the Codex for her own, Erebus took one look at her hungry eyes and the blight she had willingly taken on her soul to get those cards, and ignored how Edmond’s magic insisted he take Christopher Argent as his host. 

Instead, he roamed the length and breadth of Beacon Hills, wanting someone in alignment with his own magic, and yet close enough that he could pop by to make sure Kate hadn’t done anything too reprehensible. 

Imagine Erebus’s great surprise when he first caught sight of his little wolf. 

The boy was barely eight when Erebus found him, humming with the feral magic that came from the dark side of the moon. It was wilder and more reckless than the magic that filled the rest of his pack—and far more wholesome than what filled Uncle Peter. For that alone Erebus would’ve taken him as a host. It was simply a plus Edmond’s magic twisted around the little wolf like tendrils of fate. No matter if Erebus chose someone else as a host, his little wolf would still be tied to Kate Argent, still be the werewolf who would be her proving ground.

Erebus watched his little wolf chase his sibling through the forest on a full moon night, stumbling over his stubby legs and tilting his head back to howl with human vocal chords. Lurking in the deepest shadows of forest, the nearest he could find to the night sky, it was like when he had seen Phaedrus for the first time. It was the same certainty he’d had then, standing inside the summoning circle while Edmond chanted at him, ignoring the human entirely to watch Phaedrus instead. Erebus knew the same way he knew his own name and his place in the night sky that the little wolf was meant to be his. 

Just the same way that today the little wolf had dropped a handful of the seeds he’d been easing into the dirt and torn through the forest at a sound Erebus couldn’t hear. At a pain he couldn’t feel from a boy with wild magic in his blood and Phaedrus’s affection marking his soul.


End file.
